Housing Market, Financial Industry | featured news

Ten major banks and mortgage companies agreed Monday to pay $8.5 billion to settle federal complaints that they wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners who should have been allowed to stay in their homes.

Citigroup Inc said quarterly profit plunged on a $4.7 billion write-down of its stake in a brokerage operated by Morgan Stanley, but mortgage lending increased and capital markets results rebounded.

Finally moving beyond a trading debacle that has stained his once-stellar reputation, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, on Friday trumpeted a strong quarter of earnings stemming from a surge in mortgage lending.

The U.S. Justice Department said it will not pursue criminal charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc or its employees related to accusations that the firm bet against the same subprime mortgage securities it was selling to clients.

A Senate investigation into the financial crisis has found that Goldman Sachs, the storied Wall Street investment bank, sought to profit from the historic decline in housing prices by betting against the US mortgage market.